Saturday, August 14, 2010

"My reason for being sad or dismayed at this change is that I am going to miss being a spiritual father to my altar boys. I will miss that joyful experience of trying to pass on to them something of myself, my love for the mass, and especially my priesthood. As I said, I have great respect for the girls. But boys and girls are different. And just as there is a special kind of relationship that a father can have only with a son, there is a special kind of spiritual fatherhood that I can exercise, not with girls, nor with a mixed group, but only with a group of boys. It seems that this will be taken away from me now, and it does make me sad.

"Oh, Father," some of you may say, "why do you say such things? You will still have altar boys. The only change is that now you will have girls too." The reason I say it is that, at the risk of making a self-fulfilling prophesy, I am afraid that if the American bishops mandate that girls must serve together with boys, we may not have many altar boys left. As I said before, girls tend to be more ready and willing than boys to step forward and participate in religious activities. I am sure that if we open serving at the altar to girls, many of them will volunteer, and they will do so with the most noble motives -- their love for God and their heartfelt desire to serve Him. However, since serving will then no longer be something for boys only, it will lose its attraction for the boys, and they simply won't want to do it anymore. This is not idle speculation on my part. In parish after parish it has happened that when the altar girls come, the altar boys go. If you have been reading the papers or listening to the radio, you may have heard about a parish in Manhattan that introduced altar girls twelve years ago. The media reported with glee that now girls outnumber boys. A week ago Friday, I spoke to a priest who was assigned to a parish with both male and female altar servers. When he arrived, there were three boys and fifteen girls. Then the parish went back to a policy of altar boys only. Now this priest has fifty altar boys. I hope that with the addition of girls we won't lose our altar boys, and I and a number of other priests have signed a petition to the Cardinal asking him to look into ways to prevent this from happening, but I am very much afraid that it will happen all the same."

9 comments:

Especially interesting in view of your recent post, "The Truth about Men and Church".

St. Stephen's in Sacramento has about 900 parishioners of which 90 are altar boys. "That has to be some kind of record," remarked one of the priests. It's an FSSP parish with the traditional Latin Mass, so the boys have to know a lot of lines in Latin- and they do. They have a altar guild with ranks and medals and dodgeball games.

My own parish is novus ordo, but the pastor has altar boys only, and it's great.

I was learning to serve the EF (Low Mass) at a training conference last week and as a consequece was wearing a Cassock for most of the week; I can now understand why so many Priests seem to start of as Altar Boys

One of the reasons that the EF Mass is popular with boys is that you have important things to do.

In the Novus Ordo Mass, you process in, you sit down, and then you pretty much go back out.

In the EF Mass, you set up the altar, you light the candles, you carry the missal from side to side, you ring the bells, you respond to the prayers of the priest in Latin (something that not everybody can do), you genuflect and bow with the priest, etc.

That would be a really big deal, serving for a Bishop. I never did that as a child.

But the Christmas and Easter Triduum (we didn't call it that back then, it just was "Holy Week") Masses were wonderful to serve. Especially the long Masses on Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday. Lots of stuff to do. And maybe a dozen servers on the altar.

“How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can? But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.”- Pope Benedict XVI

"This past Wednesday I was in part of the hospital that was devoted to people who have memory problems like my father. The people here may have no idea who I am but they light up at the sight of a collar. People who cannot carry on a conversation click “on” and join in prayer as if there were little wrong with them, their faces relaxing in this moment of peace amidst the chaos of illness."- Fr. Valencheck

"The priest's life is not his own. He does not live it for himself and his personal fulfillment, but for the salvation of souls."- Fr. Richtsteig

"I am convinced that if we simply follow the liturgical books, say the texts and carry out the gestures properly, in a style continuous with our tradition, the Church’s liturgy has power the capture minds and hearts and transform them.

I starting forming this conviction before I became a Catholic through my experience of Novus Ordo Masses done in an entirely Roman traditional style, closely following the books.

The late Msgr. Richard Schuler would eventually articulate to me in words what I was experiencing in the church. "Just do what the Council asked… do what the Church asks."

Why is worship well executed according to the mind of the Church so effective?

Christ is the true Actor in the sacred action of the Church’s worship. He makes our hands and voices His own as He raises our petitions and offerings to the Father for His glory and our salvation.

Christ’s Holy Church has determined the way by which we may have this encounter with mystery in the liturgy, be taken up in the sacred action.

Although we have the right to our Rite celebrated as the Church desires, liturgy is not about me or us or even you in the pews." - Fr. Zuhlsdorf

"After celebrating Mass facing the Lord I can report these favorable effects from the priest's point of view:

1. I don't have to worry about where to look
2. I don't have to worry about what my face looks like
3. I can weep at the beauty and wonder of it all without concern
4. I can worship more freely and fully
5. I feel more at one with the people of God
6. I am on a journey to God with the people
7. I am not the focus of attention
8. The elevation of the host and the Ecce Agnus Dei have become more of a focus
9. I feel more part of the great tradition
10. I can't see who's not paying attention and feel I have to do something to get their attention back." - Fr. Longenecker

"My rector in Denver, when he was a young priest, was eating dinner at his secretary's house, a widow from Sicily. Thinking he was polite he said, 'If you wish you can call me Michael.' She stopped, put her hand on her hip, and, pointing at him with her wooden spoon, said, 'Don't think I call you Father because I think you're better than me! I call you Father to remind you who you're supposed to be and how you're going to be judged by our Lord!' He passes that lesson on to all his seminarians."- Fr. Andrew

Decalogue Against Temptation

1. Do not forget that the devil exists.
2. Do not forget that the devil is a tempter.
3. Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute.
4. Be vigilant concerning your eyes and heart. Be strong in spirit and virtue.
5. Believe firmly in the victory of Christ over the tempter.
6. Remember that Christ makes you a participant in His victory.
7. Listen carefully to the word of God.
8. Be humble and love mortification.
9. Pray without flagging.
10. Love the Lord your God and offer worship to Him only.